This invention relates generally to an imaging system, and more particularly, to generating three dimensional mammography images.
In at least one known mammography imaging system, an x-ray source projects a fan-shaped beam which is collimated to lie within an X-Y plane of a Cartesian coordinate system and generally referred to as the "imaging plane". The x-ray beam passes through the object being imaged, such as a patient's breast. The beam, after being attenuated by the object, impinges upon an array of radiation detectors. The intensity of the attenuated beam radiation received at the detector array is dependent upon the attenuation of the x-ray beam by the object. Each detector element of the array produces a separate electrical signal that is a measurement of the beam attenuation at the detector location. The attenuation measurements from all the detectors are acquired separately to produce a transmission profile.
At least one present mammography imaging system radiates x-rays from a single projection angle to generate two dimensional images of each breast. As a result of using a single projection angle, the images, like known x-ray systems, provide no depth information. Consequently, the exact location of the pathology cannot be localized. In addition, overlapping structures reduce the contrast of the object of interest to its background and, therefore, reduce the accuracy of diagnosis.
To improve diagnosis and pathology accuracy, it is desirable to provide an imaging system which generates three dimensional images of the object of interest. It would also be desirable to provide such a system without significantly increasing the costs of such a system.